Lighthouse Reef Resort by clam26

Lighthouse Reef Resort, 1999
Author: clam26

Reposted from Rodale's Scubadiving website with author's permission

I returned from a week at the Lighthouse Reef Resort and wanted to share some of my experience with those who may be planning a similar trip.

Travel: We booked through Continental Dive Vacations (1-800-634-5555, www.coolvacations.com/diving.html, nothing at the website) and were satisfied with the whole booking process. Knowledgeable travel agent (Deena), found bulk air fare, upgraded to a mini suite with no charge, documents arrived timely. Due to some weather related cancellations and flight rescheduling, instead of being on a red eye flight out of San Francisco, my travel started on a Continental van transferring passengers to San Jose airport around 4 am. Everything else went smoothly, no lost luggage or dealing with TACA, Continental takes you to Belize City via Houston. At the BZE airport, after immigration and customs, you look for the LRR rep who takes care of everything and hands you the boarding passes for a Maya Island Air flight on a 8-seat archaic-looking two-engined plane. Very pleasant flight for 25-30 minutes, at 3500-4500 ft, great view of the barrier reef and atolls. Our flight was interrupted by a short stop at the municipal airport to get some fuel, guess it is cheaper there when compared with the international airport. We didn't see the Blue Hole which is further south. Sensitive ears may need earplugs, not available on board. There is a 1 hour time difference between the mainland and the Lighthouse atoll. On the way back, the return flight is around 8.30, so those with pm flights out of BZE may get a chance to visit Belize City or its zoo, or local Mayan ruins.

Resort: The Lighthouse Atoll which is one of the three Belizean atolls, consists of 5 cayes, and the LLR is located on the Northern Caye. The only other caye at the northern end of the Lighthouse Atoll is Sandbore Caye, a short swimming/kayaking distance from the resort. Both of these islands are privately owned by a group of more than 20 investors, and a subgroup of six people (mostly Americans) own the resort. Near the southern tip of the atoll are Long Caye, Hat Caye and Half Moon Caye. 40 miles east of Belize City, Northern Caye is a tiny island, with a short airstrip. Other than 8 one-story bungalows (cabanas, villas, whatever they are called), the only constructions on the island is the office building and the restaurant-bar. The bar is not rich in selection, but one is welcome to prepare her/his own drink when no bartender is around. Only available beer was Belikin. This is also the area where you get together for meals. There is even a TV set so that one can track approaching hurricanes (no TV, no phone in rooms). As the buildings are separated by sand, there is no place that one can wear shoes, even sandals are too much. A white sand beach lies in front of this complex (there are some sticks and stuff but nothing to hurt sensitive soles), then a shallow sand-bottomed water area patched with grassy spots. A short surface swim or a couple minutes on one of their kayaks takes you to excellent snorkeling spots, with abundant marine life, including turtles. For non-divers, there is absolutely nothing to do during the day while most of the guests are out on the boat diving. They have a private beach to themselves where topless sunbathing is OK, although not legal. Both the restaurant and cabanas are full with paperbacks and magazines left by guests, and it helps if you run out of your reading material. Upgrading to a minisuite is worth the cost, and you get two queen beds and a large comfortable sitting area. Tile floors, mahogany woodwork, screens on windows and ceiling fans. All accommodation options have a front porch and clothesline to dry skins/wetsuits. Other gear is left on the boat. The furniture is running old, yet acceptable for an island resort, and beds are better than most diver hotels. A/C is not loud and efficient, and maid service is OK but not perfect with sand and hair remaining in the shower. All employees have a nice smile on their face, and fluent in English. Although they leave two cans of bug spray in the rooms (one for flying species and the other for land-based creatures), we never needed them. You need, however, lots of anti-mosquito spray on your body. There are basically two kinds of bugs that bug you, mosquitoes and no-see-ums, and both necessitate protection. An outside dinner which lasted only for 5 minutes due to a massive mosquito attack left my face, eyelids and neck (only unprotected areas) with 8 bites. No one, except for locals, was able to escape from that attack. The manager was not on the island, but there were two young individuals worth mentioning who made every effort to make our stay pleasant. Bret Wolfenberger is the operations manager (lighthouse@btl.net) and Mark Borland is the administrator (reservations@scubabelize.com). They both listened to all my criticism regarding the dive op without getting defensive, and their positive attitude, I'm sure, will make the resort a more enjoyable place in the future. I'd read about up to 250 dollars per couple per week in VAT, hotel and departure taxes in the past. There is no such thing now, you just pay for your extras (bar and minibar) which are reasonably priced.

Meals are served depending on the dive schedule, earlier dinner if there is a night dive. I wish it was later as an apres-dive dinner, no big deal though. For all-day trips around southern cayes, they packed cold lunch which was served on the boat, and on the day we went to Half Moon Caye the cook came with us, before the dive we dropped him on the island where he set up the bbq and had lunch ready for hungry divers. For in-house meals, there is an understandable logistical problem as supplies are brought in by plane once or twice a week. This results in powdered milk, canned fruits and juice from concentrate. Three course lunch and dinners looked good on the menu, but consistently lacked taste. I can't agree with some Undercurrent chaps who called the food ''crap or terrible'', but it was definitely way below average. There was an obvious problem with the cook who lacked a refined palate, and even when they offered a choice of lobster or filet mignon or combination for dinner, it was a mediocre dinner with overcooked meat and chewy lobster, and oily as everything else. I dont know how to describe this better in English, but the food was very similar to airline food, regarding taste. Don't get me wrong tough, this is all my subjective opinion, and some guests thought that the food was good. I think they were more into the name and amount of food rather than its taste.

Diving: All dives except the Blue Hole were wall dives. Minimal current for the majority of dives, no significant thermocline. Water temp was 84 at depth on all dives. Except for a few northern sites, visibility was always over 100 ft. First and last day dives were at sites closer to the Northern Caye and were not interesting. Divesites west of Long and Hat Cayes, e.g., Cathedral, Dos Cocos, Hat Caye Wall, as well as those around Half Moon Caye (Half Moon Wall and Chimney) were gorgeous. I think they are regularly visited by the PH and Aggressor boats. Pristine reefs, excellent visibility and a good variety of fish life. Huge coral heads, several eagle rays, gigantic tube sponges, 4 turtles, largest puffer on my list, lobsters-crabs, schools of creole wrasse, spotted moray, swimming green moray, several friendly groupers (petted one for the first time) and also baby groupers, knobby anemone, rough fileclam, blue bell tunicates, Pederson cleaner shrimps and 2 reef sharks. The night dive was not exciting until everybody knelt on the sandy-rocky bottom and we turned the lights off to enjoy bioluminescence. As soon as I put my left hand on the sand, I felt a very quick sharp pain on the palmar side of my two fingers, like a needle moving briskly in and out. Knew that I was either stung or bitten, felt the warmth of blood around my hand, checked my tendons in dark to make sure that fingers were functioning properly, and they were. First time saw blood U/W, looks grayish even with a divelight. Washed thoroughly on boat, and although those two fingers were swollen a lot on the following day, they did not get infected. I still dont know what that was, not a sting but a bite, with two entry points 2 cm apart (one on each finger) and the skin incisions look like arrowheads with their sharp corner facing each other. A crab, maybe? Other than the 2 reef sharks I mentioned earlier, our group was lucky enough at the Blue Hole. After a 50 yards surface swim, as we had practiced on the day before, 15 divers dropped pretty fast to 140 ft, with 2 DMs - above and below the group, and the instructor leading the dive. Around 145 ft, there were 4 sharks, (2 reef, 1 blacktip, 1 bull), max 7 ft, circling approximately 4-5 m away from us with a bunch of other fish swimming around them. They did not seem interested at all and continued swimming and made everyone excited each time they approached our group. This was my first time being so close to sharks (sleepy nurse sharks dont count) and enjoyed the experience a lot. After staying still for 8 minutes we ascended to the safety stop. I can see how Blue Hole can be a boring dive, however, when the sharks aren't there. PH boat was diving the northern tip of the hole at the same time, and when surfaced we saw the Amigos Del Mar boat approaching. Being there early was probably a factor in seeing sharks.

Dive operation: Best part was the dive boat. It was a brand new, fast 40+ ft custom made dive boat with more than enough space for everyone. We were a group of 15-16 divers, and didn't feel like a cattle boat at all. Comfortable for sunbathing in between dives, also has shower, large camera table, rinse buckets etc. Another nice thing was to have a preset diving schedule. All day trips to the Blue Hole and the Half Moon Caye were planned in advance, as well as the night dive. It is 3 dives a day for 5 days and two relatively shallower morning dives on the last day, which makes a total of 17 dives over 7 days. There is no diveshop at the resort except for the place where they keep rental gear. Bret, the ops mngr is an instructor. One of the two DMs, either Chris or Richard will be in the water during dives. Pre-dive briefings were detailed enough. Buddy pairs are allowed to do their own profile, and supposed to be back on the boat after 50-60 minutes. For those who follow the DM, he does not add anything more than leading at a slow pace and occasionally checking, which was fine for me but disappointing for those who expected some pointing/showing. DMs were helpful on boat, especially to female novices. They setup your gear, and change tanks in between dives. It is always wise to doublecheck though, since my bottom tank strap was left untightened twice, and one morning my gear was set up in a way that the low power inflator and airgauge-computer hoses were crossing from right to left in front. At the end of each dive they record time and depth (like a head count), and at the end of the week give a printout of your data with names of divesites. First dive is a check-out dive with mask clearing and a quick buoyancy check. They also do a 140 ft rapid descent checkout dive on the day before the Blue Hole trip. DMs were pretty good on safety issues (other than gear) except for a last day live-boat dive where they had no sausage and the group surfaced while the boat was still approaching. Aggressive profiles and longer than 60 min dives were frowned upon.

Overall, it was a very pleasant and relaxing week with good diving. Next time, hopefully I won't be with a non-diver and do Belize on a liveaboard. Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions regarding LRR.

DSAO clam26

NB: The entire Half Moon Caye is part of The Half Moon Caye Natural Monument and worth a topside visit because it supports the only nesting colony of the red-footed booby in white phase adult plumage in the western Caribbean (around 4000 birdies).